Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes Sunday through Thursday with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

Earlier this year, the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority – East
filed suit against 97 companies claiming their actions had violated the law in
their oil exploration and extraction activities, claiming damages. From the
start, the politicized
jackpot justice tactic behind it seemed obvious, but it also appeared
dubious on legal grounds, as it seemed to have skipped certain steps to give it
the authority to take both this action and the manner in which it pursued this.

Many of these uncertainties tied
into a contingency contract negotiated with a private law firm that also
provided payment if the SLFPA-E voluntarily dropped the suit. Caldwell’s office
gave
it assent as mandated in law, but is not counsel, and also needed and not
given was approval from the governor’s office. Further, the law appears to
dictate that the AG must be counsel and any other counsel must be authorized by
an explicit set of justification, which do not seem to appear in the resolution
to hire the firm. Finally, a past court interpretation of the law states that only
legislative approval would allow for a contingency contract, which was never
given (and legislators hinted when they convene next year that they will do the
opposite to invalidate the entire effort.)

The panel laid the questions at
the feet of the auditor, who provided this interpretation but without legal
force and recommended the board seek a declaratory judgment from the judiciary.
This can be sought by anyone, but the Authority this week will debate whether
to do it themselves.

Chances are that it will not, because
even though membership expirations allowed Gov. Bobby
Jindal recently to appoint new
members that have shown opposition to the entire suit, a majority still
present on the board appears to favor it. Indications from Auditor Daryl Pupera’s
opinion are that it rests on legally shaky ground, and a court judgment is likely
to knock the props out from supporting it.

Which if the group fails to ask then
could throw the ball into Caldwell’s court and make him very politically
uncomfortable. In the past he has shown sympathy to much greater freedom in the
state using contingency contracts and continues to claim everything regarding
the legality of the suit is going swimmingly. If the SLPFA-E defers, if
Caldwell does not take up the suggested action it will seem more likely he is
putting a political agenda ahead of doing his job.

Because undoubtedly somebody will
ask for this, and if as seems likely the courts rule parts of the contract
and/or the attempt itself invalid, then Caldwell would look not only political
in motivation but less than competent in doing his job. It’s bad enough for him
that Caldwell, who switched from Democrat to Republican prior to his reelection
in 2011, never has seemed trustworthy to conservatives, but also there are a
lot of lawyers regardless of political affiliation getting term-limited out of
office in 2015 who would like nothing better to do than continue their
political careers as a statewide elected official. By deliberately putting
himself in a position to look bad, Caldwell almost begs putative opponents to
run against him partially on the basis of poor performance in office.

Not only would it adhere better
to existing jurisprudence for Caldwell to seek this determination and withdraw
any permission for it to proceed should a court decide anything is amiss with
aspects of the suit, it’s also politically prudent for him to discourage
challengers. Or, he can continue to fall on his sword repeatedly to show fealty
to the idea of state use of contingency contracting and on behalf of a rogue
agency the action of which, either by judicial ruling or legislative action,
will fail. Unless he feels absolutely wedded to this agenda, the latter course doesn’t
seem to bring much payoff.

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